HOWARD
toric encounter occurred July 27, 1954, when Sam Phillips associate Marion Keisker phoned Howard from Sun Records to ask if she could introduce the influential arts columnist to a new singer, a 19-yearold Humes High graduate.
In a column published the day after Elvis’ 1977 death, Howard remembered: “The boy’s hair looked as if it had been cut by a lawn mower, but the trademarks were already there — flat top, duck tail and sideburns. He was shy, and except for ‘Yes sir’ and ‘No sir’ let Marion do all the talking.
“There was a time, after his return from Army service, when he began to blossom as an actor and might have developed into a fine one. But again he drew back and instead remade again and again the same formula films. He never developed, never learned how to spend his money — or his time . ... His life had become so sad to me that his death seems less so.”
Born in Grand Island, Florida, and raised in Knoxville, Mr. Howard joined the Memphis PressScimitar — the city’s daily evening newspaper — as a copy boy in 1942 and became a reporter two months later. His local career was interrupted by World War II. Mr. Howard saw combat as an infantry soldier in Italy, but he continued to report and write, contributing stories about soldiers in his unit to the men’s hometown newspapers.
Returning to Memphis, Mr. Howard — the son of J. Zollie Howard, PressScimitar managing editor — worked as an Associated Press correspondent before becoming arts and entertainment editor and book review editor at the Press-Scimitar in 1946, at age 22. (At the same time, he attended school at what is now Rhodes College.)
For much of his tenure at the newspaper, Mr. Howard made annual trips to London and twiceyearly trips to New York to review new theater offerings for Memphis readers, yet he remained a tireless champion of the local arts, co-founding the Memphis Shakespeare Festival in the 1980s and battling the Memphis Review Board and other censor groups that sought to restrict access to movies like “Ryan’s Daughter” and books like “Portnoy’s Complaint.”
Mr. Howard won numerous awards for his writing about drama, but, more important, he found his wife in the theater: The future Tugar Howard was an actress on the local stage when she met Edwin, who was reviewing her plays. “I knew him as a critic, and then I married the critic,” she said.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Howard leaves three daughters, Meg Howard of Los Angeles, Heather Howard Frentz of New Orleans and Linda Rohrbach of Arlington, Virginia, and two grandsons, James and Andrew Rohrbach, both of Arlington. Mrs. Howard said her husband’s body has been donated to Georgetown University Medical Center, as per Mr. Howard’s wishes.